After ranking fifth in 2010, Oregon was 12th in 2011 for LEED commercial and institutional projects per capita, according to the list released last week by the U.S. Green Building Council. Some industry leaders say the economy is partially to blame for the drop, while others contend that the statistics are misleading.

States ranked by LEED space added in 2011, per capita

State

Total square feet

Per capita

District of Columbia

18,954,022

31.50

Colorado

13,803,113

2.74

Illinois

34,567,585

2.69

Virginia

19,358,193

2.42

Washington

14,667,558

2.18

Maryland

11,970,869

2.07

Massachusetts

13,087,625

2.00

Texas

50,001,476

1.99

California

71,551,296

1.92

New York

36,538,981

1.89

Minnesota

9,591,445

1.81

Oregon

6,889,996

1.80

Source: U.S. Green Building Council

“The economy in the last two years has skewed things,” said Jason F. McLennan, CEO of the Cascadia Green Building Council. “Oregon has had a tough time in the commercial construction sector and lost a bit of ground.”

But Jerry Yudelson, a leading green building expert and founder of Tucson, Ariz.-based Yudelson Associates, said the list should not cause too much alarm in Oregon.

“There is no question that the Pacific Northwest, especially Portland and Seattle, are leaders in the green building field,” Yudelson said. “This list doesn’t distinguish between how many LEED gold and platinum buildings you have, so a lot of the square feet being counted are just LEED-certified, which is kind of like kissing your brother – not real exciting.”

Yudelson cited Portland’s Ecotrust building as evidence of the region’s early leadership in sustainable construction and LEED. He also mentioned the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt building renovation, which is expected to achieve a LEED platinum rating.

But the General Services Administration’s major modernization is an outlier in the Oregon market, according to McLennan. Oregon is not particularly rich in government buildings, he noted.

Washington, D.C., on the other hand, benefited from its major federal portfolio, and topped the list by a huge margin. LEED ratings were mandated for many of the city’s government buildings.

Some states’ rankings may be distorted because of their numbers of federal structures.

“A single, 500,000-square-foot GSA building might be built in a city and completely skew the statistics; that’s not an indicator of interest in green building throughout any particular state. It just means GSA has an interest and built a big building,” McLennan said.

The District of Columbia topped the list with 31.50 square feet per capita, followed by Colorado with 2.74 square feet. Oregon had 1.80 square feet. Delaware was last, at 0.03 square feet.

“One year doesn’t make a trend,” said Michael Armstrong, senior sustainability manager at the city of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. “I don’t think we’re necessarily seeing a change in (Oregon’s) commitment to green; it’s just a different construction market generally.”

Scott Rose, a DLR Group principal, said he has seen a slowdown in LEED projects over the last year or two. He attributes part of the slowdown to a lack of public funding.

“Oregon’s economy is stagnant, and unfortunately it wasn’t surprising to see that we’ve lost a bit of our foothold (in LEED projects),” he said. “Really you could probably see the slowdown right after the crash, but it’s taken this long for it to register within the state of Oregon. It will take that long to pick up again.”

However, some Oregon firms are starting to look beyond LEED to even more ambitious green building standards, Rose said.

“LEED will eventually become outdated,” he said. “It won’t be the benchmark anymore.”

DLR Group, for instance, is registered for the 2030 Challenge – a global initiative for architecture firms to adopt carbon-neutral design by 2030.

“I think in the architecture and engineering communities in general, people are saying that if we’re going to be prudent designers, we can’t settle for LEED anymore – we have to go beyond that,” Rose said.